Our
people
Professor Michael McPherson
Title
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
m.j.mcpherson@leeds.ac.uk
Phone
0113 343 2595
Address
Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Garstang Building
Faculty of Biological Sciences
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT
BHRC Role
Director of the BioScreening Technology Group
Research Interests
- Protein Engineering
- Directed Evolution
- Copper Oxidases
- Protease Inhibitors
- Functional Genomics
- Proteomics
About
Mike McPherson is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology and is also a founding member of the Centre for Plant Sciences. He obtained a B.Sc. (I) in Biophysics and Genetics and then a Ph.D. in Genetics from Leeds. After a period of postdoctoral research he was appointed to a Biotechnology lectureship in Leeds in 1985. He held a Leverhulme Trust/Royal Society Senior Research Fellowship in 1993/94.
Research in the laboratory includes protein engineering/directed evolution, membrane protein expression for structural proteomics, reverse genetics of plant parasitic nematodes and development of methods for production of nano-structured self-assembling peptides and other bioactive peptides.
A major research theme concerns copper-containing oxidases, including their catalytic mechanisms, biological roles and the mechanisms of post-translational processing that covert active site amino acids into new organic cofactors. Mutagenesis, spectroscopic and x-ray crystallography are used to explore these enzymes.
A range of high throughput approaches are employed for the cloning and expression of genes encoding membrane proteins from a variety of sources to allow structural analysis . Phage and other molecular display technologies are being used in directed evolution programmes including inhibitor and binding proteins. Increasingly the lab. is relying on the development of consensus proteins as a starting point for further molecular diversification and selection of new function in proteins. RNAi is being used to identify and validate new target proteins of importance in plant parasitic nematode development.
Professor McPherson’s team are exploring various expression systems for the biological production of peptide materials either for use in self-assembling nano-structured materials for bio nanoscience, industrial or therapeutic applications.
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